Carbon County officials have been working on plans for renovating the former archives/maintenance building along Susquehanna to try to alleviate some spacing issues the county has.

On Thursday, a number of area residents questioned what is going on there with regards to the building renovation.

The commissioners said that the building, once renovated, would become the new elections office and allow for the storage of the voting equipment, polling worker conference room space all under one roof. The new equipment takes up more space than the former electronic voting machines, the board said.

Commissioners’ Chairman Wayne Nothstein said the decision was because the county wants to keep all election business in one building.

Work on the final design is being completed at this time, he said.

When asked about the timeline for the project, Commissioner William O’Gurek, who is not seeking re-election, said that the schedule puts it out to bid in February or March, under the new board of commissioners who take office in January.

“At some point in time the people who will be sitting in these chairs, they will have a decision to make and they will have to put it out to bid and they may decide they don’t want to do that and I would think that’s foolish given all the work going into this project,” he said.

Nothstein also addressed why the county is looking at renovating the building rather than building a new one.

“When we did want to tear it down, we got opposition about the demolition of the current building because of concerns about the integrity of the wall and the church,” he said.

Nothstein added that this project will not solve the spacing issue in the courthouse, but the board decided to let the new commissioners next year handle those problems after their proposed building project next to the former archives building was canceled after much opposition.

In other matters, Nothstein addressed comments that had been made implying that he made a deal with Lehighton over the Packerton Yards property and a small parcel near his house that was purchased for $1.

Nothstein said that the borough wanted to vacate a street and he was one of 11 property owners involved in this matter.

He said that he had purchased a small piece of property from the Lehighton Legion years ago next to his house and it was not usable to him so he was turning it over to a neighbor in the agreement.

Nothstein said he felt the person owed the borough, the other property owners and himself an apology for implying there was wrongdoing with this property transfer.